Kennington Road in rush hour:
Category Archives: culture
Vauxhall City Farm
Vauxhall City Farm has been “putting the lamb into Lambeth” since 1976. It’s located right in the heart of West Kennington, on Spring Gardens. It’s free to visit from 10.30am to 4pm Wednesday to Sunday – perfect for kids and animal lovers, and you can head to the Tea House Theatre or the Black Dog for a drink afterwards.
The Tea House Theatre
On the edge of Spring Gardens, between the Black Dog and Vauxhall City Farm, is a unique kind of tea house. There’s a huge range of loose leaf teas, but be prepared to pay Mayfair prices for the specialty teas, or plump for a mug of Tetley for £1. They’re so militant about their tea that they make a point of not serving coffee, but they do have a big choice of cakes, plus breakfasts and lunches. There are board games. And yes, sometimes there is theatre, not to mention film screenings, a knitting club, chess club, and a debating society (more like a Radio 4 panel game). It’s also exceptionally baby friendly – sometimes it feels like the babies outnumber the adults.
If you’re wondering why there are stacks of The Dangerous Book for Boys around the place, one of its authors Hal Iggulden is director of the Tea House Theatre.
has anyone been to Emanuel Peruvian Restaurant on Amelia Street?
Peruvian restaurants are a relatively new phenomenon in London so it’s exciting to see one on the Kennington side of Walworth Road. We haven’t been yet but the reviews online are promising. Another benefit of North Kennington’s status as London’s Latin Quarter (St Mary’s Churchyard also hosted the Azucar Flower Festival last weekend).
Quiet London
We were recently given the book Quiet London by Siobhan Wall, which features “over 140 quiet places to meet, drink, eat, sleep, read or browse”.
Nine of them are in Kennington:
* The Cuming Museum which is currently closed due to fire, but their events programme continues
* Bonnington Square Garden, a magical place which we will write about another time
* Italo Delicatessen on Bonnington Square
* The Tibetan Peace Garden in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, which also deserves its own entry here, being one of London’s nicest and quietest parks
* G Baldwin & Co., a health food shop and apothecary on Walworth Road, which according to Siobhan has “probably the largest selection of essential oils you can find anywhere in England”. Entering the apothecary side of the shop does feel like stepping back in time (it has been open since 1844).
* Danielle Arnaud Gallery – another of Kennington’s art galleries. It is based in one of the lovely Georgian houses on Kennington Road and we can testify as to how quiet it is – when we went we were the only visitors.
* The Ragged Canteen at Beaconsfield
Quiet London by Siobhan Wall
Beaconsfield Art Gallery and the Ragged Canteen
Beaconsfield, based in a former Victorian Ragged School, is the biggest and architecturally most impressive of the surprisingly large number of art galleries in Kennington, although it’s likely to be trumped by Damien Hirst’s new gallery which is due to open just up the road in 2014.
Art at Beaconsfield tends towards the modern and the conceptual, and they are funded by the Arts Council.
On weekday lunchtimes their Ragged Canteen serves really great vegetarian food (at other times they serve drinks and cakes). In an area with various good veggie cafes in surprising places – see also The Garden Museum and the Jamyang Buddhist Centre – The Ragged Canteen is the best. If only it were open more often and for longer.
The door is permanently locked – ring the bell to get in.
The Garden Museum
[Update July 2017: The Garden Museum and Cafe have been redeveloped since this post]
The Garden Museum (formerly the Museum of Garden History) is in the deconsecrated St Mary’s church next to Lambeth Palace in North West Kennington. Even if you’re not interested in gardening, it’s worth a visit for the good quality vegetarian cafe and the lovely garden (there’s a charge to enter the museum but not the shop, cafe or garden).
The knot garden with the walls of Lambeth Palace in the background:
William Bligh lived in Kennington, on Lambeth Road in a house that is now a B&B, and was buried at St Mary’s. Appropriately enough for a site that was to become a garden museum, his grave features the breadfruit plant which he discovered and brought back to England. Presumably whoever designed his grave was hoping he would be remembered for this, rather than for being the ship’s captain who inspired the Mutiny on the Bounty.
The well-stocked shop featuring gifts for gardeners and books:
The interior of the museum:
Kennington actress Storme Toolis breaks TV taboos
A sex scene in the BBC’s New Tricks is “believed to be one of the first on TV involving a disabled actress” said the Evening Standard in rather non-committal language. Storme has also appeared in The Inbetweeneers.
The Imperial War Museum has reopened after refurbishment
One of London’s finest museums is back. The current special exhibition is on spies – topical. We haven’t been since the refurb so more when we have.
Kennington: celebrity party zone with Cara Delevingne and Rita Ora
We may be a little late in covering the #DKNYArtworks party that took place at the old Lambeth Fire Station on Whitgift Street earlier this summer, but we have good reason: we pride ourselves on lack of hype here, and we wanted to make sure that when we said that Kennington hosted this summer’s hottest party, nothing was going to trump that. Now in mid-August, it’s safe to say that SE11 can take the crown, after a night that featured Cara Delevingne stagebombing Rita Ora’s set (attempting a duet and showing off her very own take on the twerk), and appearances from an array of London’s bright youngish things including Eliza Doolittle, Henry Holland, Nick Grimshaw, Professor Green, Millie Mackintosh, and Bella Freud.
The old Lambeth Fire Station is part of an historically important fire brigade complex, sitting just behind a fire practice tower, and the more architecturally remarkable art deco moderne London Fire Brigade Headquarters on the Albert Embankment.
